If I remember correctly, the Wii drive does not have a firmware chip. It's firmware is stored in Wii's controller chip (DMS, D2B, etc) and at start up time the controller will copy the firmware code to the drive's memory and the drive will run its firmware from the drive's memory. So to modify the drive's firmware we need to update the controller. My understanding is the controller is not writable, thus we cannot update the drive's firmware from within the controller.
By soldering a mod chip we can use the debug port of the drive to modify the firmware after it has been uploaded. However I don't understand why some newer mod chip claims to be able to load games from different region. Maybe the drive is also responsible for verifying the game's region? It is also possible the new mod chip is changing other parts of the Wii (not just the drive).
Please note that this is what I read from the internet (forums). Reality could be totally different.
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